Research Insights The chemicals and petroleum industry guide to closing the skills gap Strategies to build and maintain a proficient workforce How IBM can help Leaders must reinvent culture, skills, and experiences using digital technologies to help optimize processes and augment business decisions. The reinvention of your enterprise requires a focus on organizational devel- opment—improving all the ways your employees interact with customers, the business, and each other. Whether you use Workday, Oracle, SAP, or another human resources (HR) tool, IBM can offer the expertise to help your organization manage change. Using artificial intelligence (AI), automation, new talent technologies, and the expertise of IBM, you can hire the right people and keep their skills sharp. IBM can guide your talent evolution toward a Cognitive EnterpriseTM. Learn more at ibm.com/services/process/talent. By Sonia Van Ballaert, Spencer Lin, and David Womack Key takeaways Introduction The “human” factor is essential In recent years, a talent shortage was one of the greatest threats facing chemicals and petroleum organizations. to the industry Combined with the continuing harsh reality of the Chemicals and petroleum CEOs see COVID-19 crisis, more workforce repercussions will workforce skills as the top business surely follow. accelerator. The COVID-19 pandemic Long before the pandemic, hiring cycles have typically has exposed the industry’s digital capability, followed industry cycles of oil prices. For instance, during and made it even more difficult to hire and downturns in 1986, 1998, 2008, and 2014, graduate recruitment and apprenticeships in the industry were find skills—especially digital skills. virtually nonexistent.1 In addition, during the oil downturn of 2014, the industry went through a major workforce Skills availability and quality reduction, cutting over 440,000 jobs.2 As a result, the are in jeopardy labor pool has declined over the past several decades, and due to limited investments in talent recruitment, The Great Crew Change set the stage for many organizations have not kept up with the demand a skills shortage, with declining employment, for workers. looming retirements, and large demographic The second shale-oil boom has created new jobs in oil age gaps in the workforce. The time it takes and gas drilling and associated services. Organizations to close a skills gap has ballooned, and are now struggling to attract talent but have been unable organizations must find ways to stay ahead to tackle the problem effectively. of skills relevancy. For example, the number of UK graduates going into the oil and gas industry has plummeted since 2013 How organizations can help close the gap (see Figure 1). This decline is a global issue, as is Our research reveals that training and evidenced by a survey of more than 33,000 people working in oil and gas, conducted by oilandgasjobsearch. hiring are not enough. We explore strategies com and NES Global Talent. Nearly 90 percent of respon- that suggest the greatest impact on closing dents said skills shortages were damaging productivity, 3 organizational skill gaps and offer three with gaps widening in every sector of the industry. key recommendations. Multiple factors, including continued—and rapid— technological developments and business and operating model innovations, have contributed to market shifts that are redefining the chemicals and petroleum industry. During the Great Crew Change, the exodus of retirees imperiled knowledge retention and escalated the competition for talent. 1 Advances in general and industry-specific technology Figure 1 are the top 2 factors influencing Declining United Kingdom graduates (undergraduates chemicals and petroleum skills and postgraduates) employed in oil and gas within six demand in the future4 months of graduation 2012 to 2013 Talent acquisition is critical: 780 chemicals and petroleum 2013 to 2014 CEOs surveyed rank investment 595 in people as the number 1 way 2014 to 2015 to accelerate performance5 420 2015 to 2016 Closing a skills gap through 335 traditional training has 2016 to 2017 increased by more than 335 8 times in the past four years, 6 jumping from 4 days to 35 days Source: IBM Institute for Business Value analysis based on data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency: https://www.hesa. ac.uk/data-and-analysis/publications#destinations-leavers- higher-education The industry has also faced challenges in attracting a younger workforce to what many perceive as an “out-of-favor” industry. Indeed, one of the root causes for the oil and gas industry skills gaps is that graduating talent, in general, is no longer attracted to the fossil fuels industry. This reduced interest, along with the demo- graphic crew change, impedes the industry’s progress. 2 Three-quarters of surveyed chemicals and petroleum leaders tell us they have the people skills and resources required to execute their business strategy. Combined with economic and market disruptions, these The human factor: The strategic factors have created a perfect storm that is affecting the value of, need for, and availability of workforce skills. importance of skills and talent The result is a massive shortage of talent. New skills requirements that continue to emerge as others become The labor force has a significant impact on enterprise obsolete only compound the problem. vitality. Without skilled workers, organizations struggle to innovate, deliver value to customers, grow their Data management and analytics capabilities are in businesses, and create new jobs. Chemicals and high demand due to the influx of enormous amounts of petroleum chief executive officers (CEOs) see the data. For example, one modern offshore production critical importance of skilled workers. platform can have more than 80,000 data tags capable of streaming real-time data, including temperature, In fact, according to the IBM 19th edition Global C-suite pressure, and well conditions.7 In addition, as business Study, “Incumbents Strike Back,” investment in skills platforms mature and companies continue to introduce tops the list of business accelerators that would improve new intelligent workflows, continuous workforce reskilling enterprise performance.10 This initiative was viewed as will be paramount to remaining competitive.8 even more successful than other critical accelerators, such as: In and of themselves, hiring and traditional training methods are not sustainable solutions to the talent crisis. – Improving motivation of business leadership Successfully navigating this new environment requires – Promoting more collaboration with startups fundamentally reshaping how organizations manage – Building new partnerships with dynamic innovators. skills, talent, and culture. In this report, we offer a roadmap to guide chemicals and petroleum executives Industry executives also grasp the need for skilled toward actions to help address this critical issue. workers, particularly when expanding into new markets. In fact, 86 percent of executives cite the availability and Our recommendations are based on insights from multiple quality of skilled workers as the key factor for organiza- IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) research initiatives tions making location investment decisions.11 as well as performance benchmarking data. Through research and analysis, we discovered specific skills devel- Industry leaders further underscore the criticality of skills. opment tactics that appear to have a significant impact on Three-quarters of Chemicals and Petroleum Reinventors— 9 closing skills gaps. We have compiled a set of recommen- organizations we surveyed that outperform in profitability, dations that harness AI to help organizations close revenue, and innovation—tell us they have the people skills-related gaps: skills and resources required to execute their business strategy. And 76 percent of those leaders report that they – Personalize at scale invest continuously in improving employee skills.12 – Increase transparency – Take advantage of ecosystems. 3 “Our workers will need to be digitally educated and thus ready to adopt any kind of digital-enabled manufacturing process.” CEO, Petroleum industry, US The struggle is real: Current The engineering and technology skill sets that the industry will need going forward are also shifting. The core industry skills challenges skills of the future will focus on expertise in the areas of carbon, capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), hydrogen, Data has been referred to as the new natural resource. and offshore wind. One may wonder who is training new However, without talented and innovative people, the professionals on those new technologies today so the power of data remains largely dormant. Humans are industry can sustain itself as it and its clients get to essential to the process of extracting value from data net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. and applying it in new ways. The rate at which professional skills become obsolete is The availability and quality of these critical human increasing, which exacerbates the issue. The half-life of resources are stressed. Areas such as the specialty professional skills was once estimated at ten-to-15 chemicals sector face the biggest talent shortages years.18 This estimate means that the value of those skills because they require specialized skills, and this shortage would decline by half—or that half the knowledge associ- is expected to grow over the next ten years.13 Examples of ated with the skills would become irrelevant—in how vital